Sergei Lavrov was due to meet the President this Monday (April 17) on a visit to Brazil at the invitation of the Planalto Palace
The Chancellor (Foreign Minister of Russia) Sergei Lavrov will be in Brasília this Monday (Apr 17, 2023). He was due to meet President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) at 3 p.m. at the Planalto Palace. The timing of the meeting is pending confirmation in Lula’s agenda.
Lavrov is coming to Brazil at the invitation of the Brazilian government. Minister Mauro Vieira (External Relations) met with Lavrov in New Delhi (India) on March 1. After the meeting, Itamaraty announced that Lavrov would come to Brazil. Celso Amorim, Lula’s special adviser, was in Moscow, Russia, at the end of March and met with President Vladimir Putin.
Lavrov’s tour begins this Monday morning (April 17) at the Itamaraty. He will meet with Vieira at 10:30 am. From 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. there will be an extended session attended by the teams of the two ministers. At 1 p.m. they will make a joint statement to journalists. You will not answer any questions. Then they will have lunch in Itamaraty.
ProRussia statements
After Amorim’s meeting with Putin, Lula made a statement in favor of Russia regarding the country’s war with Ukraine. In a meeting with journalists on April 6 at the Planalto Palace, the President said Ukraine should cede territories to Russia in exchange for a peace deal.
“O [presidente da Ucrânia, Volodymyr] Zelensky can’t want everything,” Lula said at the time. On April 7, Zelenskyy released a video saying that “respect and order will only return when the Ukrainian flag returns to Crimea.” He didn’t mention Lula.
The Brazilian President also returned to the issue as he left Beijing, China on Saturday (April 15) after a twoday visit to the Asian country. He said the United States must stop promoting a war between Russia and Ukraine.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Sunday (April 16), Lula said the war was the fault of Ukraine and Russia.
US doesn’t like
O Power360 found that US diplomacy found Lula’s statement unacceptable given that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
It is also understood in the US government that Lula was inelegant when speaking about the US in China because when he was in Washington and met with US President Joe Biden, he did not criticize other countries.
The US government does not intend to officially comment on Lula’s statements for the time being. But he estimates that the fact that the Brazilian president is allied with Russia weakens his attempt to mediate the country’s conflict with Ukraine. Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro (PL), also avoided angering the Russians, but had no intention of mediating the end of the conflict.
Russian fertilizers
Lavrov’s visit is being closely watched by US diplomacy, which says signs of Brazil’s rapprochement with Russia have been exaggerated. He estimates that part of this is due to the country’s dependence on supplies of Russian fertilizers in Brazil.
Lavrov, 73, has been in office since 2004. Prior to that, he was Russia’s representative to the United Nations (UN) for ten years. He will stay in Brazil until Tuesday (April 18). Then he goes to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.